MOVE-OUT CLEANING CHECKLIST
Free move-out cleaning checklist — ready for the walk-through
Every room of an empty home or apartment, inside every cabinet and under every appliance, with before-and-after photos and a place to note what couldn't be fixed. Free in Word and PDF.
Word and PDF · Free · No email, no sign-up
The short answer
A move-out clean is a deep clean of an empty home, checked against the walk-through: inside and outside of every cabinet, drawer and closet; the oven, fridge and dishwasher inside and behind; every wall, baseboard, door, window and blind; every bathroom fixture; the floors edge to edge; and the lights, locks and keys at the end.
It's the clean with the most at stake. The tenant wants the deposit back, the landlord wants the next tenant in, the seller wants the buyer's inspection to pass — and the cleaner is the one who gets the call if a cabinet was missed. The checklist below has a place to note what couldn't be fixed, and it starts with the before photos.
Price it by the whole home, hand this list to the client with the quote, and put the same list on your move-out cleaning page.
FREE CHECKLIST · WORD AND PDF
The move-out cleaning checklist, ready to print
Before you start, every room, the kitchen, the bathrooms, the laundry and garage, and the final walk-through with after photos. Letter size, portrait, two pages. Free, no email, no sign-up.
Checklist · check off every line
| [Your business name] | |
| Move-Out Cleaning Checklist | |
| For an empty home — every room, every surface, ready for the walk-through | |
| Property: ______________________________ Unit: ________ Client: ______________________ | |
| Move-out date: ____________ Walk-through: ____________ Keys returned to: ______________ | |
| Before you start | |
| ☐ | Confirm the home is empty and the water and power are on |
| ☐ | Photograph every room before you begin |
| ☐ | Read the lease or the landlord's move-out list for anything extra |
| ☐ | Remove leftover trash and items (if agreed) |
| Every room | |
| ☐ | Wash walls and remove scuffs; note nail holes (not filled unless agreed) |
| ☐ | Baseboards, door frames and both sides of every door |
| ☐ | Ceiling fans, light fixtures — and check every bulb works |
| ☐ | Vents, switch plates and outlet covers |
| ☐ | Inside windows, sills, tracks and blinds |
| ☐ | Closet floors, shelves and rods |
| ☐ | Carpets vacuumed edge to edge, including closets |
| ☐ | Hard floors swept and mopped |
| Kitchen | |
| ☐ | Inside and outside of every cabinet and drawer |
| ☐ | Countertops and backsplash |
| ☐ | Inside the oven, the racks and the drawer under it |
| ☐ | Stovetop, burners, drip pans, hood and filter |
| ☐ | Fridge and freezer inside, behind and under — defrosted, doors propped open if switched off |
| ☐ | Dishwasher inside, filter and door edges |
| ☐ | Microwave inside and out |
| ☐ | Sink, faucet and disposal |
| ☐ | Pantry shelves |
| ☐ | Floor, including under the appliances |
| Bathrooms | |
| ☐ | Toilet inside, outside, base and behind |
| ☐ | Tub, shower, tile, grout, doors and tracks |
| ☐ | Sink, counter and faucet; mirror |
| ☐ | Inside the vanity and medicine cabinet |
| ☐ | Exhaust fan cover |
| ☐ | Towel bars, hooks and toilet paper holder |
| ☐ | Floor, including behind the door |
| Laundry, garage and outdoors (if agreed) | |
| ☐ | Washer and dryer inside and out; lint trap emptied |
| ☐ | Laundry sink and shelves |
| ☐ | Garage swept, cobwebs down |
| ☐ | Patio or balcony swept |
| ☐ | Front door, porch light and mailbox wiped |
| Final walk-through | |
| ☐ | Every line above checked off, or noted why not |
| ☐ | After photos taken, room by room |
| ☐ | Lights off, windows locked, thermostat set as asked |
| ☐ | Keys and garage openers left where the lease says |
| ☐ | Anything you couldn't fix — damage, stains, holes — written here: ________________________ |
| Price a move-out clean by the whole home, not by the hour, and tell the client what's included before the day. The before-and-after photos are the record for both sides. | |
| [Your business name] · [Your phone] · [Your website] | |
Edit the Word file to add the lines your local landlords ask for — carpet shampoo, the garage, the balcony — and save it as your master. The PDF prints as-is.
Build the website
Start your cleaning website now
Add your business name and your town to the sentence, and Zarla builds the site, with a page for each service and town you list. You edit it in chat and publish when you're ready.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.
THE WALK-THROUGH
What landlords and inspectors check first
Where a move-out clean fails the walk-through — do these to the standard before the rest of the list.
| Hot spot | What they look for | What passes |
|---|---|---|
| The oven | Baked-on grease, the racks, the drawer underneath | Inside wiped to bare metal, racks and drawer clean, glass door clear |
| The fridge | Shelves, drawers, door seals, the floor under it | Emptied, every shelf and drawer washed, seals wiped, moved and cleaned behind if it rolls |
| Bathroom grout and caulk | Mildew, soap scum, hard-water scale on the fixtures | Grout scrubbed, fixtures descaled, caulk clean or noted for replacement |
| Walls | Scuffs, marks, nail holes, cooking grease near the stove | Washed, scuffs removed; holes noted on the sheet, not filled unless agreed |
| Carpets | Stains, pet odor, edges and closets missed | Vacuumed edge to edge; stains noted; shampoo as a priced extra if the lease asks |
| Windows and blinds | Tracks full of dust, blinds gray | Inside glass, sills and tracks clean, blinds slat by slat |
| Cabinets and closets | Crumbs in the drawers, shelf paper, hangers | Every cabinet, drawer and closet empty and wiped inside and out |
| Light fixtures | Dead bulbs, dust and insects in the covers | Covers washed, every bulb working |
STEP BY STEP
How to do a move-out clean from the checklist
An empty home has nothing to clean around and everything to clean inside — the order matters.
Confirm the home is empty, and photograph it
Utilities on, furniture out, trash gone. Photograph every room before you touch anything — damage that was already there is now on record.
Read the landlord's list
Many leases and property managers hand tenants a move-out list. Get it from the client and add anything extra to the checklist and the quote.
Start the slow jobs
Oven cleaner in, fridge off and propped open, grout and shower products on. Then the whole-home pass: fixtures, vents, walls, frames, doors.
Kitchen and bathrooms, inside everything
Every cabinet and drawer, the appliances inside and behind, the fixtures descaled. This is where the walk-through is won.
Floors last, edge to edge
Closets and under the appliances included. Carpet shampoo if the lease asks for it and the quote covers it.
Walk it, photograph it, hand over the keys
After photos in every room, the sheet checked off, anything you couldn't fix written down. Keys where the lease says.
Deposits, “professional cleaning” and the cleaner
In the US, security deposit rules are state law. Two examples from the statutes: in California the landlord has 21 calendar days after the tenant vacates to return the deposit with an itemized statement of any deductions, can't deduct for ordinary wear and tear, and can't require the tenant to pay for professional cleaning unless it's reasonably necessary to return the home to the condition it was in at the start of the tenancy; in Texas the landlord has until the 30th day after the tenant surrenders the premises to refund the deposit.
In England and Wales a deposit on an assured periodic tenancy is held in a government-approved deposit protection scheme and must be returned within 10 days of the landlord and tenant agreeing how much comes back; if they don't agree, it stays protected in the scheme until the dispute is sorted — which is why photos and a checked-off list matter on both sides.
What it means for the cleaner: your job is to return the home to “clean”, not to “new”. Note anything you can't fix — holes, stains that won't lift, damage — on the sheet rather than promising it, photograph before and after, and give the client the checked-off checklist to send with the keys. Deposit rules change and differ by state and country, so check your local rules before you promise a client anything about their deposit.
Put the checklist on your website as your services list
Move-out cleaning is searched for by tenants with a deadline, landlords with a turnover and sellers with an inspection — all of them want to know what's covered before they book. The checklist is that answer, and it's the page a property manager forwards to the next tenant.
If you build your cleaning website with Zarla, add your business name and your town to the sentence above, and Zarla builds the site, with a page for each service and town you list. Then tell the editor “add a move-out cleaning page listing the rooms and tasks on my move-out cleaning checklist, with before-and-after photos” and the list goes on the site, in a section you can edit any time.
Want to see a finished site first? Browse cleaning website templates, see how Zarla builds cleaning websites, or look at six cleaning website designs and what agencies charge for them.
The rest of the pack
The other checklists, all free: the house cleaning checklist, deep cleaning checklist and office cleaning checklist.
Pricing and paperwork: How to start a cleaning business covers the first steps; how much to charge for house cleaning has the 2026 rates and a calculator; the cleaning invoice template bills the visit, and how to write a quote prices it first.
Move-out cleaning checklists: common questions
A deep clean of the empty home, inside everything: every cabinet, drawer and closet inside and out; the oven, fridge, dishwasher and microwave inside and behind; every wall, baseboard, door and switch plate; inside windows, tracks and blinds; every bathroom fixture, the grout and the exhaust fan; and the floors edge to edge, including closets and under the appliances. It ends with a walk-through, after photos and the keys.
A deep clean is done around a family's furniture and belongings; a move-out clean is done in an empty home, so it also covers inside every cabinet and closet, under and behind every appliance, and it's checked against a landlord's or buyer's walk-through. It's priced as a one-off for the whole home.
Longer than a deep clean of the same home despite it being empty — the inside-everything lines add up. Most cleaners allow a full day for one cleaner on a two-bedroom apartment and send two for a house. The state the home was left in decides it, which is why the quote follows a visit or photos.
Yes. It downloads free as a Word document and a PDF with no email and no sign-up. Edit the Word file to add what your local landlords ask for, or print the PDF and check it off by hand.
In the US it depends on the state and the lease. In California a landlord can't require it unless it's reasonably necessary to return the home to its move-in condition, and can't deduct for ordinary wear and tear; read the lease for what it asks. In England and Wales the deposit sits in a protection scheme, and stays there until any dispute over it is sorted. Deposit rules change and differ by state and country, so check your local rules.
Photograph it before starting, write it on the checklist's “anything you couldn't fix” line, and tell the client — don't try to repair it unless that's agreed and quoted. A cleaner's job is clean, not new, and the note is the record if the deposit is discussed later.
By the whole home, after seeing it or photos of it, with extras like carpet shampoo and the garage priced on the quote. Our house cleaning pricing guide has 2026 move-out rates by square foot alongside standard and deep cleans.
Sources
Read October 25, 2026.
- California Civil Code §1950.5 (FindLaw) — the itemized statement and the deposit no later than 21 calendar days after the tenant vacates; no deductions for ordinary wear and tear; professional cleaning only where reasonably necessary to return the home to its move-in condition (last updated January 1, 2026)
- Texas Property Code §92.103 (FindLaw) — the refund on or before the 30th day after the tenant surrenders the premises (current as of January 1, 2026)
- GOV.UK — Tenancy deposit protection — the deposit held in a government-approved scheme and returned within 10 days of agreeing how much comes back (England and Wales; page reflects the May 1, 2026 tenancy changes)
Be the move-out cleaner the landlord recommends
Add your business name and your town, and Zarla builds the site from that one line — with a move-out cleaning page and a quote form, ready to edit in chat.
Already have a website? Bring it across →Zarla keeps your old page addresses where it can and redirects the ones that change, helping you keep the Google standing you've built.